On Aug 25, 2025, at 9:27 AM, Paul Eggert via tz <[email protected]> wrote:
> There are two issues here. First, whether to use HTML entities like
> '/‘/’ versus ordinary characters like '/‘/’. Second, whether
> to use '/' or ’/’ in English possessives and contractions.
...
> For the second issue, which is what I think you’re focusing on, there has
> been considerable confusion and some controversy due to the historical use of
> ' (U+0027 APOSTROPHE) to mean many things including apostrophe and single
> quotation marks. On this topic the current Unicode Standard says the
> following[1]:
>
> When text is set, U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is preferred as
> apostrophe.... U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK is preferred where the
> character is to represent a punctuation mark, as for contractions: “We’ve
> been here before.” In this latter case, U+2019 is also referred to as a
> punctuation apostrophe.... The semantics of U+2019 are therefore context
> dependent. For example, if surrounded by letters or digits on both sides, it
> behaves as an in-text punctuation character and does not separate words or
> lines.
Some style guides:
MLA:
https://style.mla.org/apostrophes-three-ways/
"It should look like a single closing quotation mark, not an opening one."
Federal government of Australia:
https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/grammar-punctuation-and-conventions/punctuation/apostrophes
They don't seem to say what an apostrophe should look like, but the apostrophes
in that text are U+2019.
